@JohninPa Ok, Just wanted to make sure. An overnight hold with ECA could cause the lack of snap with a mushy product.

@johnsbrewhouse thank you sir

I have been using beef fat exclusively for my summer sausage and snack sticks and would have to do a batch with pork fat to compare. Please send me your meat to pork fat ratio for 12.5 lb and I can try a batch and see if I can see a difference . I will make 2 ea 12.5lb batches and compare. Personally I have never been able to tell the the difference between the meat I use, I have used Caribou,Whitetail and Sitka Black Tail Venison, Moose, Elk and Beef and can’t tell the difference in flavor of the finished product. I am planning on trying Black Bear this year with Extra Precautions to ensure it will be trichinosis free as our bears are well known to carry it.

I can’t comment directly on snack sticks, but I’ve had to hold other cured sausage for close to 48 hours because life got in the way of smoking. That batch did have a cure accelerator in it (ascorbic acid). It came out alright. At the very least, fat out was not a problem.

@cfkarch It seems as if most of the time it ends up ok but to be safe smoking same day is the best. But, hey, life gets in the way sometimes!

@Jonathon said in Snack sticks meat ?: @JohninPa With what @Unionguy1019 just added I would strongly consider tossing the meat. I came to the conclusion that I am going to do just that. I think I would of been fine but used too much water when mixing it and too hard to stuff with the grinder. I will be trying again this weekend.

@JohninPa If you don’t want to finish in a water bath you will still be done pretty quick with 1.5" logs. I’d guess you won’t be at the last stage for more than 2 hours or so. You can grind exactly like parksider said!

Biggest issue with stuffing off of a grinder, in my opinion, is that you are going to get air pockets. In a 32 mm casing thats no big deal but in a 19mm casing…that gets tough in my mind. It can be done but my suggestion would be to use a larger casing.

@samspade a neat little project

@joduff what @JohninPa used would be exactly what I would recommend. Sure gel is a bit more expensive than some of the other binder but it does the best job (in my mind) and for your first time it’s probably the best choice. Willies is an awesome all around snack stick seasoning so you can’t go wrong with that. I’d consider adding hi-temp cheese, for willies I’d just go with cheddar or hot pepper which isn’t really hot, it’s more like pepper jack. Everything you said was correct, dampers wide open with no smoke or humidity for the first hour and then close them down and add some and a wTer pan. Check out the advanced thermal processing video where we added automotive sponges to the water pan, you can really get your telematics humidity up there with that! I’d use 19mm smoked collagen casings and I’d hang them if possible, if not you can rotate them but they are gonna have marks either way so maybe just leave them so one side is smoother? Don’t forget an ice bath or shower to cool them down, then leave them out at room temp for an hour, then the fridge overnight before vac packing. Good luck, I’m sure they’ll be great!